The Choices We Make
by Silver-Ashes
Summary: What do you do when words fail you, Nikki? Harry/Nikki
1. In Which Friends Meet In a Bar

**Title:** The Choices We Make

**Chapter 1 - In Which Friends Meet In a Bar**

**Summary:** What do you do when words fail you, Nikki? [Harry/Nikki]

**Rating:** T (for naughty words and themes)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these two beautiful characters – I'm afraid I must relinquish that right to the BBC. Please don't sue me – I'm a poorly uni student.

**A/N: **Well, here it is – my first Harry/Nikki fic. I've been a lurker for far too long on this site, on the LJ community and on YouTube. I normally write one shots, but it's late, I'm tired and I want to get this published to see if you guys think it's worth continuing. This first part sets up the premise and is a launchpad for the rest of the story. At most it will be a two to three parter.

This plot bunny attacked me viciously (sort of the like the one in Monty Python's Holy Grail) while I was supposed to be finishing my thesis literature review – oh, how my muse has terrible timing. She's so badly behaved at times. And her moral compass is totally off, as you're about to find out, dear reader.

I thought it only appropriate that Emilia Fox should make a guest appearance in conversation.

* * *

Friday afternoon at the lab was regularly a dreary affair – and this Friday was no exception. Scotch mist filtered through the fog outside and left everything feeling damp and _cold_. The autopsies for the week had been completed, and Nikki Alexander was left staring into the dregs of her coffee looking for inspiration to help her finish a very, very dull report.

But tonight would be better. Jilly and Manda had asked her to go into town with them for a couple of drinks at some fabulous new wine bar they'd stumbled across in a drunken stupor last weekend. It would be great to get out of the house – a reason to dress up, check out what was on offer in town and maybe meet new people. _Well, male people anyway_, she reasoned.

------

At five on the dot Nikki walked over to Leo's office, wished him a good weekend and said goodnight. Of course, her weekend could be interrupted by work if a special case came in, but she rather hoped not. She could do with a couple of days curled up in front of the fire with her new Val McDermid thriller and successive mugs of hot chocolate.

She secured the belt around her coat and prepared herself to face the cold outside. She was met with a chilly wind that instantly brought out the roses in her cheeks and whipped against her already chapped lips.

The drive home was uneventful, though slowed to a crawl by the terrible weather and a series of accidents that it had caused. The five thirty news finished up just as Nikki pulled into the driveway of the private apartment complex she lived in. Punching in the access code to get beyond the gate, she began to think about what to wear tonight – especially given the vile weather.

Still sorting through a mental collection of outfits, she pushed the key into the lock and entered her apartment. The heater hadn't been on since she'd left that morning and so there was a cold, musty feeling in the air. She quickly flicked the central heating on, hung her coat in the hallway and unceremoniously dumped her bag in the kitchen. Definitely time for a hot bath.

------

Arriving at the bar just after 8, Nikki was pleasantly surprised to be met with a relaxed atmosphere and a room draped in fairy lights to create attractive mood lighting. Luxurious and comfortable-looking sofas were dotted about the room, and hardwood tables were strategically placed amongst them. A long marble bar sat in the corner covered in a kaleidoscope of coloured liquors.

She spotted Manda in one of the corner lounges and waved as she walked over. They embraced and sat down, discussing how their respective working weeks had turned out. Soon after, Jilly walked in the door and walked over to their table before embracing them both and joining the conversation.

Nikki decided that she was most definitely responsible for the first round of drinks, and left to purchase three cocktails that were sapphire blue, had an unknown alcohol content and contained questionable ingredients.

An hour and another drink later, the girls were busy discussing the latest celebrity fashion trends, and just how _amazing_ Emilia Fox had looked on the red carpet at the TV Crime awards. Nikki was totally absorbed in her sentence when she felt two fingers poke either side of her ribcage, and shrieked in surprise. She reacted instantly, turning around to be met with a grinning Harry Cunningham. _Grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat, _she thought.

"What are you doing here?!" she asked, shocked to have bumped into her best friend in the same bar when there were literally hundreds in town.

Harry looked around behind him, spotted something and then pointed. He covertly whispered to Nikki "that's Jenelle."

Taking the hint, Nikki smiled and winked in return. "Well, good luck then. Good to see you've not lost your touch with the adoring twenty five year olds."

"Tart," Harry replied before walking off in the direction of Jenelle.

"He doesn't age, does he?" asked Manda, giving him a visual once-over that Nikki felt rather inappropriate considering Harry was standing only metres away with his new date.

"I suppose not" Nikki mused, not really paying attention to Manda's rambles – she tended to always end up with the wrong sort of guy and had to be rescued by Nikki at the end of the night.

"Right, back to what were talking about…" began Nikki, and the chatter about celebrities recommenced.

------

The next time Nikki looked around, she noticed that Harry and Jenelle were seated together on a sofa directly across from where her group was. They were deep in conversation, and something that Harry said seemed to be hysterically funny to Jenelle. Nikki smiled – she was happy to see Harry looking so content and enjoying himself. Given the horror that they dealt with on a daily basis at work, and the hideous hours they worked, he of all people deserved to be happy.

Just as she was about to turn back to her cocktail, she noticed a look cross Harry's face that she'd only seen once before – when he'd kissed her at the conference. That had been nothing, just friendly comfort, but Nikki felt that that look was reserved for her alone as his best friend. As she watched on, Harry leaned in further to capture Jenelle's lips in a chaste kiss.

Suddenly, it was like all the air had been sucked from the room. The noise of idle chatter suddenly stopped, the other people in the bar faded away into the abyss. All Nikki could see was the couple in front of her engaged in a passionate embrace, and she felt like the fabric of the world around her was being splintered. She looked away quickly and took a deep breath, steadying herself. When she looked back, the image in front of her stunned the newly captured breath from her lungs. Harry was staring directly at her over Jenelle's shoulder, smouldering eyes boring into hers and arm still around Jenelle's shoulder.

Nikki felt the flush rise from her neck upwards and quickly excused herself from the table, claiming a loo break was required. Which wasn't a lie – she needed to get _out_ of that room and work out just what the hell was happening here.

------


	2. An Uncomfortable Realisation

**Chapter 2 – In Which There is an Uncomfortable Realisation**

**A/N: **Thank you to the lovely Charlotte and Immortal for your encouraging reviews of chapter 1 – made my morning :)

Now, I don't remember Nikki having or not having a brother – so he's just thrown in to prove a point. If he doesn't technically exist in the canon land of SW – oops.

So here's the next chapter in this soggy mess that my wayward muse has devised – and this time she felt it only appropriate that both our good friends Emilia and Tom made an appearance on a wall.

* * *

Nikki pushed the bathroom door open and practically ran to the nearest cubicle. She locked the door behind her, and lent her forehead against the cool wood. She must be tired – that _must_ be what it was. She'd had a long, stressful week at work, with a lot of late nights spent at the lab, and now she'd had two cocktails of unknown content. Alcohol and sleep deprivation. That's all it was. Yes, _definitely_.

------

Jenelle felt Harry's grip tighten around her momentarily, before he looked back at her and excused himself to the 'little boys room'. _That was odd_, she thought – but didn't dwell on it. _Probably just the effects of the alcohol kicking in._

------

Nikki closed the lid of the loo and sat down, staring at the graffiti on the back of the door before her.

_Save the whales – collect the whole set. _

_Destroy Capitalism! _

_Bush is a dipstick. _

_Emilia 4 Tom._

"Who writes this crap?" she whispered out loud. What made people feel so strongly about another human being that they were compelled to bring a nikko into a restroom and record it for all eternity. Make a submission to the annuls of time on a toilet wall? Declare their love to the rest of the world in a bathroom?

Nikki had never understood such behaviour and, in reality, didn't really understand what declarations of love in any capacity were about anyway. In her experience, men weren't subject to affection and were largely objectified – her father was a protector (_dismal failure there_), her brother was a trusted companion (_failure since he'd buggered off to Australia_), and Harry was a best friend- _wait. _Wait_ on two accounts – the failure and the befriending._

Was Harry now to be the next in a long line of men who'd failed her? And was he even still her best friend?

What had he been trying to say when he'd looked at her across that room with all the passion of a lover etched in his deep eyes?

------

Harry entered the corridor at the rear of the restaurant and at the end was met with a stark brick wall and a door on either side – the male and female bathrooms. No sign of Nikki. _Shit._ There was only one place she could be since he'd ratted out all the other potential hiding places. And that was, morally at least, off limits.

_What have I done?_

------

Before she could even start thinking about Harry's actions, Nikki realised that she must work out what _her_ problem was. Why she'd had such a violent reaction. Why she'd felt a little part of herself dying when he'd kissed Jenelle…

They'd laughed together, cried together and flirted together on more occasions than she cared to count. They sought comfort in each others' embrace when times were tough. They'd kissed, just that once, and been on a single date that had been probably the best night of her life. But Harry's past had roughly slammed that door on both of them and they'd never dared to revisit those turbulent undercurrents.

She'd moved on, found other lovers and slowly the wounds had healed until they were unnoticeable. Harry had found his own ways to move on, and between them they'd forged an unbreakable friendship.

_Unbreakable until now?_

------

After seven and a half minutes, Harry knew that Nikki must be avoiding him. He couldn't hang around out here without looking like some weirdo, and couldn't afford to stay away from Jenelle for too much longer lest she begin to wonder what he was doing. He was going to have to go in – there was just no other option. Entering the ladies' bathroom was not what he'd had on his to-do list when he'd come here tonight, but now it looked like it might be the only way of getting through this.

------

Finally deciding she couldn't hide in the toilets all night and would have to return to her friends in case they thought she was unwell, Nikki stood up and opened the door. She moved to the sinks, splashed cold water on her face, washed her hands and dried them on the napkins provided. Staring into her tired eyes in the mirror she wondered how she'd ended up in this mess.

A nasty, niggling feeling was churning through her stomach, and she could see the uncertainty reflected in her irises. She was _almost_ sure she knew what it meant, but she just _didn't_ want to go there. Wasn't ready to.

_He's your best friend. You don't want to do this. It will _never_ end well. Never._

But no matter how hard she tried to deny it, another voice was whispering treacherous and traitorous nothings in her mind. _You've been in denial for a long time, haven't you, Nikki?_

In a sudden, blinding moment of clarity, the answer stood before her in the quiet, dank bathroom.

_You've fallen for Harry Cunningham._

And the bathroom door swung open.


	3. An Unavoidable Confrontation

**Chapter 3 – In Which There is an Unavoidable Confrontation**

**A/N: **Thank you to all the lovely reviewers who took time out of their busy days to lend words of encouragement – each and every one of you are stars :)

Sorry for the delay in updating this story… uni has been absolutely nuts with end of semester panic and rush!

I promise I will review other peoples' stories soon… I know reviews aren't a one way street and I must reciprocate your kindness.

Not sure if this is the end of this fic or not... need to do a bit more thinking. However, you can now experience first hand just how wayward my muse's moral compass has become when presented with Harry/Nikki.

* * *

Harry took a single step through the door and his eyes immediately fell on Nikki's silhouette. She turned in surprise at the sound of the nearby footfall and her eyes widened – startled initially by someone opening the door, and then by that someone resolving into the figure of Harry.

Their eyes met instantly and held. The sparkling tension was almost too palpable and Nikki felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

"Nikki..." It was a pained, stretched, almost exasperated whisper of her name.

Caught like a deer in the headlights, Nikki couldn't move backwards and couldn't walk forwards. Her mouth opened, delivered a slight and unintelligible sound, and closed again.

"Oh God, Nikki. Where do I start?"

"The beginning's usually helpful." Now that she'd found her voice it seemed she couldn't help the steely coolness that laced every word. She suddenly felt her initial confusion replaced by raw, burning anger directed solely toward the man stood before her.

"I never meant for this to happen. No…" he corrected himself, "I never meant for this to happen_ this way_."

"Maybe that's the charm that the adoring twenty five year olds see in you." She didn't mean to be spiteful, but was being absolutely poisonous.

"That's unfair. You don't understand…" His voice was even, but his eyes were pleading

"I really don't think it is unfair, you know. And you've made damn sure that I understand just how well your little games work." She was on the verge of shouting, and managed to reel herself in just in time.

"You're different, Nikki."

His statement stung her like a handful of gravel to the face. "I'm not _different_ Harry, I'm just the next conquest in a very long line. It's just that I present you with certain complexities that make me a _challenge_. Dead Mummy plus criminal Daddy equals messed up Nikki. Something you haven't had the chance to attempt before. Sound about right?"

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, and couldn't believe how quickly this situation was unfurling in the wrong direction - from his perspective at least.

"Why can't you just talk to me, Nikki?"

"Talk to you about what?" She was being deliberately obstructionist, trying to draw the words from his mouth so she could hear him try to justify his own actions.

"You know what." He wasn't about to give in to her little game.

"Oh, right… you mean _that_ fact that you kissed your girlfriend, and then immediately looked at me over _her_ shoulder like you wanted to rip my clothes off?"

A burning flush rose across his face, and he struggled to keep his composure.

"Why can't we just discuss this?"

"_Discuss_ this?! What, like the big grown ups that we are? You know why we can't discuss this? Because you did something… _unforgivable._ And now you've got to fix the mess you've made."

"And what do you do when words fail you, Nikki? How can you possibly understand what it's like to want to tell someone something and not have the first clue how to even start? What it's like to tell your best friend that you're in l-". Harry's sentence was cut short and drowned out by the opening of the toilet door, and without thinking Nikki roughly shoved him into the cubicle in front of them, slipped in herself, and pulled the door closed before the new bathroom visitor could see them. Especially because, as she noticed through the slight opening in the door just before it closed, the new bathroom visitor was Jenelle.

In hindsight, it wasn't the smartest move she'd ever made, because now she was trapped with her back to the wooden cubicle door and her front flush to Harry's chest. The scent of his aftershave was suddenly intoxicating and Nikki was finding it harder and harder to breathe.

When she looked up, she was drawn in by his eyes upon her, his pupils dilated to encompass almost his entire iris. His breathing was as erratic as hers, and the look on his face mirrored the way he'd looked at Jenelle earlier.

_Jenelle... shit! _thought Nikki, remembering exactly where she was, who she was with, and why she'd got here in the first place. The chemical release in her brain had overloaded all sense of logic, reason and morality, making her forget that this man was her best friend and that his _girlfriend_ was barely five metres away.

She blinked and tried to clear her head, but all she could see before her was Harry staring into her eyes. Images came unbidden to her mind, images of her and him that she knew weren't hers to hold and which could _never_ materialise.

But before she knew what was happening, Harry had pinned her shoulders against the door roughly, and his lips were descending towards hers. The initial contact was dizzying to the point of inflicting phantom pain, and she swore she saw stars. Her eyes fluttered shut instinctively and she was drowning in the sensation of his lips on hers. A little voice of denial was trying to escape the hormones rushing in her brain, tell her what a _shitty_ idea this really was, but the chemicals drowned out the logic.

A sudden break in contact forced her eyes to open immediately, and she found Harry staring down at her with a mixture of pain and reluctance in his eyes.

"I…" he whispered, words suddenly escaping him at this critical point.

"Don't say it… not now," she breathed in reply. "You're breaking our hearts."

He reached up and tucked a blonde curl behind her right ear, eyes tracking down her face to her lips once more. Nikki reached up and smoothed down his tousled hair, resting her hand in the soft black strands as he gently pulled their foreheads together.

"What do I do?" He pleaded, suddenly unsure of himself when before he'd been brave and brazen and kissing the love of his life in the female toilets a few feet away from his girlfriend.

"It's all about the choices we make, isn't it Harry?" she whispered, her hand still in his hair and his taste still on her lips.


	4. A Not Wholly Successful Escape

**Chapter 4: In Which a Not Wholly Successful Escape is Made**

**A/N: **Thank you, thank you, thank you my lovely reviewers. You mean the world to me :)

Sorry for the mega delay in updates… work and uni mauled my soul, chewed it, spat it back out again, stamped on it, buried it and then danced about on its grave. Anyway, you get the idea.

With all the goss out and about regarding the new series, and Tom Ward's statement that "_It's not over… there will always be something special between them [Harry and Nikki]_" we can't give up just yet, fellow shippers. Slag!Rebecca will soon be history I'm sure.

Just in case it's not easily obvious, _italics_ are Nikki's (and my morally questionable muse's) wayward thoughts.

* * *

Nikki found she couldn't look away. She just couldn't. The look in Harry's eyes was pinning her to the spot, trapped between his body and the door. The sudden reality of the situation and the enclosed space around her made her feel slightly hysterical, and it was all she could do to swallow a giggle.

Harry looked taken aback at her sudden change in attitude and feared he'd done something wrong. When she shook her head and tried to hide a manic grin he simply raised one eyebrow in his trademark 'Harry's WTF look' and her giggle came out unabated.

"Sssh!!" he madly whispered, placing his hand over her mouth to try to stop the flow of hilarity before Jenelle heard anything. Instead, Nikki's laughter sounded more like a gagging cough and the noise rang out through the bathroom.

Jenelle, obviously concerned for whoever was a few cubicles up from her and was seemingly coughing up their tonsils, called out. "Are you okay up there?"

A look of startled panic, akin to 'deer in the headlights' passed between Harry and Nikki at their situation, and how exactly Nikki was going to answer. Because Harry definitely _could not_ answer from a cubicle in the ladies' bathroom – that didn't bear thinking about for a variety of horrible and hysterical reasons.

"Ahem… I'm okay, thanks," Nikki called back in Jenelle's direction. "Just choked on a lozzie, I'll be fine in a sec."

Hoping that this had put an end to the issue, Nikki closed her eyes and leaned her head forward against Harry's chest. They were too close to the door for him to snake his arms around her, so he simply rested his chin on her head. They stood in silence, listening to each other's breathing, and the noise of flowing water as Jenelle flushed her loo. Nikki hoped this move wasn't too presumptuous of her, but Harry looked as if he _really_ needed some TLC right at that moment. Clearly, Nikki thought, his plan for tonight had not involved cheating on his new date in the ladies' toilets at a bar in town and he needed some reassurance. She wasn't exactly sure what sort of position, morally or emotionally, this put them in. She didn't have great experience with the 'messy love triangle' category, and didn't like the idea that she'd made a cheater out of him – but in the context of what had happened tonight, what she'd experienced and what she'd realised about herself – she couldn't decide if she really regretted it at all.

Nikki realised some time later as she heard Jenelle running water in the sink that if she didn't emerge from the cubicle soon it was going to look _very_ weird. She did her best to explain to Harry her plan using a combination of sign language, semaphore and animated lip reading. Figuring it was now or never, Harry stepped to the left, behind the arc of the door, and Nikki exited the cubicle through the far right, careful to leave the door open enough to not look suspicious, but closed enough that Harry couldn't be seen from outside.

Jenelle looked up into the mirror to see who her companion in the bathroom was, and immediately familiarity identified on her face. "You must be… Nikki, right?"

"Y-yep. Er, that's me." Nikki tried not to sound nervous or guilty or freaked out, and ended up sounding just a little drunk. _Oh well, drunk it is then_ she decided.

"Harry's told me so much about you – you must be really great friends! He really seems to value your friendship and he has so many great stories about you." _Oh, I bet_ thought Nikki caustically, then reminded herself that she had to remain impartial in this conversation. "Oh, I'm sorry – you probably have no idea who I am! I'm Jenelle."

"Nice to meet you Jenelle. I noticed you with Harry earlier." _Understatement. _"Yeah, well Harry's a pretty funny guy. He's a good friend of mine, and we've known each other for years, and since we work together we seem to get into a lot of adventures together." _Oh God, don't gush or anything_.

"It would be great if the three of us could catch up for dinner one night, Nikki – I'd love to get to know you better. You seem so friendly."

_Oh God. Harry. What have you done?_

"I'd like that too," smiled Nikki through gritted teeth. _Liar, bollocks you'd like that_. "I'll talk to Harry about getting something organised."

"Cool – well I'll see you then," said Jenelle.

"I'll look forward to it." _Like a cobra bite. Christ, when did I get this bitter?_

Half way to the bathroom door, Jenelle turned back to Nikki and asked "Have you seen Harry anywhere? He went to the bathroom about half an hour ago and I haven't seen him since. Perhaps he fell into the urinal!"

"Harry has a habit of wandering off… maybe he's gone outdoors to get some fresh air, particularly if he's had a couple of drinks." _Only a lie by omission. You didn't actually directly say you hadn't seen him._

"Ok, I'll try outside – thanks Nikki."

"No worries, see you later Jenelle."

Harry waited thirty seconds or so after the door had closed behind Jenelle and then slipped out of the cubicle. Nikki was finishing drying her hands on some paper towels, and turned her head in surprise when he grabbed her around the waist from behind.

"And in the ladies' toilets, Harry. Your flattery skills are second to none."

"I work with what I'm given. You can't say I'm not resourceful."

"We'd better get out of here before some poor, drunk eighteen-year-old stumbles in here and succumbs to your charm."

Harry gave her a dirty smirk and headed for the door, before grabbing Nikki and pushing her out first. "Quick, check the coast is clear."

After a quick look around, she turned back. "It's fine Harry, no one's around, we're good to go."

"Fabulous," drawled Harry, pulling her back inside the bathroom and pinning her against the wall next to the hand towels. "So I can do this," he kissed her neck, "without the risk of being interrupted."

"Harry, no. Just… no. We can't do this. Not now. There's too much stuff to work out, too much to think about. That poor girl thinks you're God's gift at the moment, and I still don't know where I stand. We need to sort this out properly, and the middle of the ladies' is _not_ the place to do it."

"You're- you're right. This," he waved his arms about, "whole thing, is about as unconventional as you can get." He looked desperately sad for a moment, perhaps in recognition of the series of events he'd set in motion.

"We need to talk, _properly_. I think I'll head out and find Manda and say I've got a headache from the alcohol and I'm off home. How about you come to mine at, what is it now….? 9.30… Okay, will you come to mine at 11?"

"You know I will." His answer was spoken so quickly that she immediately looked up, startled by his words. The look in his eyes implored her to trust him, and spoke of so many turbulent truths that she just couldn't look away.

"Come on, we've got to get back," she said finally. "I'll see you at 11."

She took the opportunity to steal a kiss on his temple, and pulled the door open. They spilled out of the bathroom together, already too far out the door by the time they noticed Jenelle watching the two newest occupants of the corridor from the other end of the hall.


	5. A Secret is Uncovered

**Chapter 5: In Which a Secret is Uncovered**

**A/N: **Thank you to my wonderful, wonderful reviewers and to Charlotte, Immortal and all the LJ, Tumblr and YouTube crew – you mean the world to me :) I can't apologise enough for abandoning you and thus the inexcusable lateness of this chapter (read: 2+ years). Buying a house, finishing my thesis and getting a real job have all ganged up on me.

Caskett has broken me of late, so Harry/Nikki have become an even bigger refuge than usual in this time of OTP trouble. And if 'And Then I Fell in Love' goes the way Emilia was hinting… we'll all be happy for a while. So for the meantime this is angsty, and I think 'Stay' by Hurts is an appropriate soundtrack for this particular chapter - but be assured, reader, that things will all be sorted out in the end.

**Disclaimer Refresher**: I (still) don't own them – if I did they'd be finding all sorts of interesting uses for each other's desks by now. Plus I'd be able to afford a proper beta, not my dodgy midnight self-proofing.

* * *

There was an earth-shattering silence in the hallway. Of the kind that doesn't happen very often, because the kind of events that cause it are too horrible to happen very often.

Jenelle seemed to turn white almost instantly, whether from shock or anger Harry couldn't judge. There were no words here, nothing that could possibly make this situation any better, or any worse for that matter. They'd emerged from the ladies' bathroom together, just seconds after Nikki told Jenelle she'd not seen Harry. What was the excuse to be - that Harry _really _liked women's toilets and would rather use them than the men's? No, there were no answers on this occasion. Nothing that could paint over the cracks this time.

Jenelle had managed to compose herself quickly, and within seconds had turned on her heel and gone. Harry contemplated running after her but, realistically, what would that achieve? A screaming match in the middle of the bar? Humiliating the poor girl further, and in front of a crowd? No, there was nothing to be done at this late stage in the proceedings.

He turned back to Nikki, standing rigid as a statue in winter, and panicked at the shine of tears in her eyes. He wasn't used to handling her in this state – _correction_, handling her in this state when her pain had been caused by his actions. His eyes. _His lips._

On plenty of occasions he'd provided her a shoulder to cry on in her hour of need; when another of the _unsuitables_ had broken her heart. But he'd never had the misfortune to be the unsuitable in question.

He reached out for her – blindly trying to grasp her hand, her elbow, her arm, anything to anchor him to this moment in time when everything was spinning out of control.

"Nikki!"

But she was already gone, slipping through his fingers and slipping from his life.

Unless he did something. This was the moment. This was the instant when he would sink or swim; when the house of cards they'd built would be fortified or burnt to the ground. He had to make that choice, and be prepared to follow through regardless of the consequences. Fight for her in the space of this heartbeat or lose her to a place from which she could never return to him.

Decision made and senses returning, he ran through the packed bar after her, calling her name and looking for any sign of her. But she was gone, either lost amongst the crowd or already halfway down the street.

He turned and spotted Manda at the bar and backtracked his steps toward her, still looking for any flash of blonde hair amongst the general disarray. Manda hadn't seen Nikki since she had excused herself to the bathroom, and had assumed she was still there and having some kind of catastrophic makeup crisis. Harry didn't want to worry her, and simply reported that Nikki had felt unwell and gone home, asking him to tell Manda and the girls that she was fine and would call in the morning.

He said his goodbyes as quickly and concisely as possible without seeming rude and took another wander through the crowds. Still no luck, so she must have left already.

When he walked through the door to the street outside, the night had obviously changed. Earlier, the evening air was cold and interlaced with the misty kind of rain that chills through clothing, but now the incoming wind was bitter with proper icy rain that chilled straight to the bone. It seemed that even the night itself was now weary with an overtone of regret.

In both directions, the street was filled with only rain and darkness, interspersed with the odd reflection in a puddle from the street lights. Very few revellers were still outside in the weather, with most sheltering in sensible places like pubs, clubs and houses. Not standing in the street, nearly drenched, and shivering with a combination of cold, wet and razor sharp guilt.

_She has to go home. Eventually._

The thought came to his mind from nowhere, it seemed. Obviously his subconscious was far more able (and willing) at this point to work him through the current predicament than his waking mind was.

How pissed would she be, realistically, when he turned up on her doorstep? Looking like a drowned rat. A shivering, drowned rat. A shivering, drowned, apologetic, guilty, almost comically pathetic rat.

It would go one of two ways; she'd let him in and give him a towel and a hot coffee (_you're dreaming, sunshine_) or she'd kick him to curb and slam the door in his face (_far more probable given the current state of affairs_). The problem was, he only wanted it to end one way. With her knowing _exactly_ what she'd started that day when she stumbled into the lab to brush her teeth and ended up stealing his desk.

And, seemingly, his heart.

* * *

Paying the taxi driver, he stepped out cautiously onto the rainy road. He turned and looked up at her apartment above him, noticing that all the lights were out and the path to the front door was shrouded in a threatening kind of darkness. Perhaps she had been very tired. Perhaps she had just gone to bed early. Perhaps he shouldn't wake her. Perhaps she wasn't even home yet and this was all pointless. Perhaps….

_No_. That was the coward's way out. The way to certain madness if he did not face what they had started tonight. It was time for one of those full disclosure, cards on the table, laundry airing discussions that only happens once or twice in a lifetime and leaves your head spinning and your lungs desperate for air. That was the only way that they could ever even be in the same room as each other again, should they decide in the end that _them_ was not what they wanted.

He nearly choked on that thought, couldn't imagine anything he wanted more… or _anyone else_ he wanted more right in that moment.

In the desperate hope that his clumsy, heavy footfalls might alert her before the awkward knocking and calling that would showcase his desperation, he started up the stairs. One at a time on this seemingly insurmountable journey.

After the third series of knocks, he ascertained that perhaps she really wasn't home yet. Surely, even pissed at him as she was, she could not ignore him for this long. So he sank down slowly against the door and put his head in his hands; and soaked and frozen from the inside out waited for her to come home.

Waited for _her_.

* * *

He didn't bother checking his watch. It could have been minutes, hours or days before he heard her footfalls. He'd know them anywhere – recognised the sound as she placed weight on different parts of her heels, knew the pace of her steps by heart.

He must have looked like some kind of wreck as he raised his head to make out her figure ascending the steps. She looked up at him with the kind of confusion that broke his heart because it said she thought he would abandon her. Her face was tear-stained and her clothes almost as sodden as his.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had risen from the floor and was reaching out for her, trying to make amends through contact. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy but the words weren't coming right then so it made sense that actions should speak louder.

It burnt like acid when she almost recoiled from his reach, the confusion in her eyes morphing into some kind of self-protective mask. She looked right through him, like she didn't even know who he was, as she fumbled for the door keys in her handbag.

Before he could comprehend what was happening before him, she was through the door and turning to close it behind her, without looking at him. Without even referencing him.

He tried to reach for her again and she ceased the movement of the door, looking at his hand like an alien thing. He tried to meet her eyes and though they were looking at each other she was miles away. Like she'd closed down, partially or completely he couldn't tell.

"Nikki?" It came out far more strangled than he would have liked. Showed his weakness. In this moment. For her.

"I can't, Harry. Not now… not…. I just can't."

"No, please don't do this. I.. we… need to talk. We just need to talk. That's all. I need to explain some things. We both said earlier that we need to _talk_."

He knew he sounded desperate, but her unwillingness to deal with this upfront would be their undoing if he couldn't convince her.

"I think I need time, Harry. I think we both need time, and space. I think… I don't know. We need to sort through this mess. But not _now_."

Her eyes were tired, more exhausted that he'd seen in a very long time.

"We can't achieve anything at this hour, when we're this tired. We need to think about this before we make any… mistakes."

"You think that's what this is, Nikki? That my feelings for you are a _mistake_?"

"No, that's not what I mean. It's not- you know what? Never mind. We'll deal with this later when we're both in a better frame of mind. I can't deal with this right now."

"With _this_, or with _me_?" His tone was almost broken, but there was a steel behind it that betrayed him. Spoke volumes of his confusion and the rising twist of terror in his gut.

"Don't put this back on me, Harry. I am _not_ the one who started this." She sounded far more frustrated than he had expected, and suddenly he had no idea how to handle this situation.

"But I need to do _something_, Nikki!"

And the frustration suddenly fuelled the anger and her eyes flashed fury.

"Oh, I think you've done quite enough tonight."

And the door slammed in his face.

* * *

That was it. Nothing to lose now. Cards on the table.

_Fine_.

At the volume this was going to spill forth from his lungs, she'd damn well hear him through that bastard wooden door.

"I'm in love with you, Nikki!"


End file.
